Keep Calm and NO SHADOW!
by Kyarra Iyono
Summary: When Nabelle Hikari (OC) is eating with her friends, Shikamaru overhears a conversation that peaks his interest. This leads to a full-scale battle. Who will win, who will lose... and is there a tiny bit of romance between them? ShikaxOC. Rated T to be safe.


**A/N**

**I dedicate this story to someone who helped me through a really rough time and helped me write this story! She had an epic sense of humor and came up the OC for this story: Hannabelle. (changed to Nabelle because someone said it wasn't Japanese enough.)**

**Description: Tall, with an athletes build, pale (but not Uchiha pale) dark brown ****hair with highlights that seems almost golden in the sun, cut in a pixie cut. ****Blue eyes with golden yellow rings surrounding the pupils. She wears a black ****tank top with her clan symbol (red crescent moon next to a blue sun) on the back. ****She also wears black pants with leg wrappings, Black sandals, black gloves with ****her clan symbol on them, and a ring that says KEEP CALM AND NO SHADOW. She is ****from the Hikari clan from the village in the waves. **

**Well now that you have listened to me go on and on and on... The story! **

* * *

Keep Calm and NO SHADOW!

It was a lovely day in the hidden leaf village. Nabelle was visiting from the village hidden in waves, and was completely bored out of her mind. She had nothing to do! Kyarra was out on a mission with Neji, so they couldn't even hang out. She looked all around the village and saw no one she knew.

Well that is until she saw Tenten, Gaara, Temari (The sand sibs are in town too!), Hinata, and surprisingly Kakashi, walking down the street. Temari saw her and waved for her to come over.

As she was walking over she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Shikamaru and Choji walking in the same direction her friends were.

_'I wonder where they're going.'_ She thought, then shrugged. She had seen Shika around town a lot with Choji, and was good friends with him.

"Hey Nabelle!" Tenten said loudly. "We're going to go get some barbeque! Wanna come?" She finished just as loudly as she started. _'Man she's gonna kill my eardrums!'_ Hannabelle thought, then realized Kyarra had to live with this pretty much 24/7.

Poor girl.

She was getting kind of hungry so she agreed and started walking over to the restaurant with them.

When they arrived they found a table and sat down. She noticed that Shikamaru and Choji were there too, just at a different table. _'So that's where they were going!'_ She thought,_ 'It's like they're following me!'_

She and Gaara were chatting while the others were busy eating when he suddenly said, "Your fighting style is legendary in the sand village. Do you have a certain strategy?" The kunoichi was surprised at the suddenness of the question, but quickly recovered. "I don't need a strategy!" She boasted.

Shikamaru overheard what she said and was confused. How could you fight so well and not have a strategy? He didn't believe it! He had to teach this girl a lesson or two about strategy.

He walked over to their table.

"Hey Shikamaru!" Tenten yelled. "Hello, troublesome woman." He said to her. Then he looked right at Nabelle. "I heard you saying that you didn't have an attack strategy. I want to test that. I know it's a drag but I challenge you to a battle." Shikamaru yawned.

"Fine." She replied. "I accept your challenge. Lets go." She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the restaurant and to the training grounds.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were standing apart from each other, Kakashi standing on the side, explaining the rules.

"...Any weapons can be used besides explosive tags. For this match only, if you need to, you may take weapons from your audience. This is just a spar, not a life-or-death battle, so try to avoid lethal strikes. Unless, of course, you just can't help yourself." The eldest copy ninja chuckled at his own joke, but only he, Gaara, and Temari seemed to find it funny.

"So those are the rules. Before I allow you to start, are we all clear on them?"

"Hai!" Nabelle took her stance, the excitement and energy flowing off of her like waves. She did a quick series of seals- boar, rabbit, tiger- and closed her blue eyes.

Everyone watched in astonishment -except for Kakashi, who had fought side-by-side with the girl multiple times before- as her hair lightened to the exact color of gold. A collective gasp was emitted as she reopened them, showing new eyes of a shining yellow-gold. Shikamaru tried has best to remain calm, but inside, he was confused, and, truthfully, quite a bit scared.

"...Troublesome."

"Nabelle-chan, I must remind you to hold back for this." Kakashi told her, smiling nervously.

"Of course, Kaka-kun."

Kakashi tried his best to ignore the snickering coming from the younger nin, but it was not as easy as it seemed. Hell, even Shikamaru Nara himself was smirking.

"Begin!"

Shikamaru Nara launched himself into the trees, disappearing from sight.

"Trying to play hard-to-get, eh, Nara? Well, that doesn't work against me." She closed her eyes again, and those watching held their breath, unsure what was coming next.

"Byakugan!" The chakra passageways around her eyes showed themselves. She opened her eyes, and darted through the trees.

She flew from branch to branch, not even worried about her speed. She could see for miles, so what was the point? She finally stopped at a branch in a sycamore, ten feet above his head.

She smiled, victory was hers.

It was at that moment she found it impossible to move.

"Damn you, Nara!"

The boy looked up at her, smirking. "You play chess, right? Check."

He blinked, and suddenly, where the troublesome girl was once trapped, there stood a log.

"You wish, Nara."

He heard her voice in his ear, but as he turned, he saw her ten yards away, smirking, holding a very familiar large scroll. Her thumb was bleeding, he noticed, as her hands flashed seals so quickly it rivaled even Kakashi.

"Sealing art: Rising Twin Dragons!"

And just like that, he was dodging hundreds of weapons. In his wild escape, he somehow wound up near the same place he began. A dead silence was in the air, as he entered the clearing looking stressed, an expression hardly ever seen on Nara's, and one that honestly did not suit them well.

"Whoo! GO SHIKA!" Temari's voice rose from the clearing, and then a pounding sound was heard, one which sounded suspiciously like someone stomping on another person's foot. "OUCH! Gaara, what was that for?"

Gaara glared at his sister before he answered. "The Kazekage's sister-slash-personal-bodyguard should not make a spectacle of herself, especially by acting like an obsessive fangirl."

"I was not- SHIKA!"

Normally, Shikamaru would be mad at her for shouting his name, but as he turned around, he could not be more grateful to the troublesome woman.

There, fifty yards away, stood the golden mirror kunoichi, Nabelle Hikari herself. She was panting slightly, and her hair had gained a few dark streaks, but otherwise she looked no worse for the wear. "I've got to admit, you're pretty good. I've wasted quite a bit of chakra on you. But this ends here."

"It would make this less of a drag if you could clarify." She glared at him for this comment, but gave him an answer.

"Look down, you baka!" His feet were entombed in stone. He glared at his opponent, only to have her smirk back. She walked up to him, unafraid of what he could do to her- and truthfully, at that moment, he didn't plan on doing anything but admire her curves- and kissed him on the forehead, whispering the phrase he'd been dreading.

"Checkmate." She sprinted back about fifty -Shikamaru still paralyzed with shock and maybe a small bit of delight at her kiss- and began gathering chakra in her hand. A static charge filled the air, and the sound of birdsong could be heard.

And that was when Shikamaru Nara realized he was very close to death.

"Chidori: A Thousand Chirping Birds!" She began running toward him, quickly closing the distance between them. At two yards, he gave in.

"Okay, okay, I forfeit!"

Just as quickly as she was running, Nabelle stopped and smirked, her Chidori disappearing. She closed her eyes, returning herself to her normal appearance, and freed him from his stone prison. "Sucker."

And in that instant, the air temperature dropped ten degrees as a great amount of malice was focused on Nabelle, who didn't even flinch.

"What did you just call me?"

"Are you deaf? I called you a sucker...Sucker."

"You'll pay for that."

"Hn. Great, now I sound like one of those damn non-syllabic Uchihas. Anyway, I don't think so. I was honestly expecting something better from the master of strategy."

"What are you talking about? I only challenged you this to teach you a lesson."

"Are you daft? I'm the one who taught the lesson today."

"What?"

"Why were you unable to form a working strategy against me?"

"Simple. Against someone with thousands of known abilities, and probably at least a hundred that I don't know about, and no true strategy, it's impossible to predict which ones you're most likely to use, and thus impossible to make a strategy of my own to..." His eyes widened as he realized it.

"My strategy is the hardest of all, yet the simplest. My strategy is no strategy."

And with everyone staring, she left the training ground.

Meanwhile, those watching, who had just regained the ability to speak, were still trying to figure out what just happened.

Hinata spoke first, in a strange bout of out of character personality. "What the HELL just happened?"

"Absolutely nothing my dear friend Hinata!" Nabelle yelled cheerfully, still walking away. Shikamaru said goodbye to the others and ran to catch up with her.

"I can't believe you beat me without even having a strategy you troublesome woman!" Shikamaru told her.

"Damn right! I outsmarted a genius!" She announced triumphantly. They were walking along in silence for a while when Shikamaru suddenly spoke.

"I know it's a drag but, would you like to come to my house and play shogi?" He said, then blushed, looking away.

She mocked thought, putting one of her fingers on her chin and pretended to look like it was a tough decision. "Okay." She finally agreed. He grabbed her hand this time and led her to his house. When they entered he introduced her to his mother and left for his room quickly. Nabelle just followed.

* * *

**-In the middle of the game-**

"How!" Shikamaru yelled. "How are you beating me?" Nabelle looked at him surprised.

"Wow! You actually finished a sentence without say 'drag' or 'troublesome!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air, "It's a miracle!"

'Love does that to someone.' He thought, sighing in frustration.

"You love me?" She asked, surprised. She was really surprised at the confused look on Shikamaru's face–which was slowly turning scarlet–until he spoke. "Oh my god... DAMMIT I SAID THAT OUT LOUD?"

He yelled the last part which made Nabelle laugh. She told him to calm the hell down then she took his hand in hers. "I love you too Shika."

* * *

**-One month later-**

"Okay we have been dating for a month. What should I get her as a present..." Shikamaru said to himself as he was walking through the streets of the hidden leaf. He had been looking for hours, sighing explosively as he walked from store to store, empty handed after each one.

"Bah... this is too troublesome! How am I supposed to know what to get for a girl!" He yelled, earning him a few stares from some of the people who were also walking around.

Then he remembered her ring.

The ring Nabelle always wore that said "Keep calm and NO SHADOW".

He looked in the store window that he was next to and saw a bracelet. He had been looking at that particular bracelet earlier, trying to find out what it reminded him of. And suddenly he understood and knew exactly what to get her.

"Keep calm and YES SHADOW"

He smirked as he bought it for Nabelle.

* * *

**ENDING NOTE!**

**Yeah the fight scene was totally my helper! I suck at that kinda stuff heheh. This is a little OOC for Shika during the shogi match... But whatever I did my best!**

**THANKS FOR HELPING!**

**P.S. uh, your character is totally unfair. Like, I can pretty much read minds, but you can use any jutsu! Bah, so unfair! I'm jealous I didn't think of it first! :P **

**Love you all!**

**~Kyarra-Chan**

_After all this time?_

_Always._


End file.
